Two Cows and a Young Bull beside a Fence in a Meadow
1647
Medium
Oil on panel
Dimensions
49.5 × 37.2 cm (19 1/2 × 14 3/4 in.); Framed: 70.2 × 58.1 × 4.5 cm (27 5/8 × 22 7/8 × 1 3/4 in.)
Classification
oil on panel
Department
Painting and Sculpture of Europe
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
146953
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
Paulus Potter, a prolific painter and etcher during his short life, elevated images of cows, oxen, and other domestic animals to majestic emblems of nature. His lavish attention to the physical appearances of such beasts—the varied texture and coloring of their hair, their characteristic poses, their bulky contours—borders on portraiture and likely derived from drawings he made from life. With Potter, animal painting blossomed into an independent genre in the Dutch Republic.
About the Artist
Paulus Potter · 1625–1654
Paulus Potter (1625–1654) was a Dutch Golden Age painter whose short life — he died at just twenty-eight years of age — belied an artistic achievement of remarkable originality and influence. Born in Enkhuizen in 1625, Potter trained under his father, the painter Pieter Potter, and later in Amsterdam and Delft, where he absorbed the technical standards of the flourishing Dutch painting tradition. ...